Alexander Taylor
MA Information Experience Design, Royal College of Art
a@alexandertaylor.org
Blissify.io
A sardonic (but largely functional) browser extension designed for Google Chrome that monitors the users webcam to automatically detect and block websites that are making them unhappy.
Powered by Javascript, Blissify uses clmtrackr to read the users emotional state in real-time as they browse the internet. Upon detecting a rapid increase in negative facial expressions, Blissify will hide the page the user is currently viewing before automatically adding it to their personal block list.
Featured on Fast Co. Design, The Creators Project, Vocativ, Prosthetic Knowledge.
Contentbot.net
Contentbot is a 3D character that you can watch browse the internet in real-time, 24 hours a day. Consisting of a variety of server and client side tools (including a re-appropriated web scraper), Contentbot occasionally uses sentiment analysis of the page it is currently on to construct and post a tweet, with over 20,000 made to date. Aside from a selection of built-in 'bookmarks' (selected from the 1000 most popular sites on the internet), the browsing behaviour of Contentbot is generated at random.
Project received coverage from Motherboard [Vice], Gawker,Prosthetic Knowledge.
Two Heartbeats
'Two Heartbeats' uses readings from two heartbeat monitors -- placed on the index finger of two individuals -- to power the two motors of a 'heartbeat generator'. Answering a brief to 'create a physical system or artefact that demonstrates emergence', magnets attached to the two spinning bars manipulate the central ferrofluid 'heart' held in the center in the vitrine, causing it to beat as the two heartbeats fall in and out of synchronization.
Made in collaboration with Jaz Affleck.
3GTV
An immersive viewing platform/automated web-based TV channel dedicated to the one million or so .3gp* files that have found their way onto Youtube, with the option to narrow video selections down to specific regions and categories. Making extensive use of the Youtube API, 3GTV was built using Javascript and Three.js. Commissioned by Rhizome as part of their microgrants program.
Heap Cuts
Collaboration with Jason Friedman (of The Hundred In The Hands) for New Ancestors. As the viewer watches, the 3D plane begins to fill with Youtube and Soundcloud embeds -- these used to play automatically to gradually construct a procedurally generated song, but since recent autoplay restrictions on Chrome now have to be played manually by the viewer, leading to a different, more interactive experience.
Built using Three.js, and a lot of CSS trickery to physically repsent the 2D embeds in a 3D space.
TDT System
A research-led project that critiques methods of 'soft control' used by sharing-economy businesseses that rely on maintaining pools of contractors, the outcome of which was the design of a watch (and the business entity behind it) that would push company control of worker time perception to absurd ends by calculating and suggesting a unique time-zone for each worker.
The semi-functional prototype is 3D printed in metal and powered by Arduino -- the final presentation also included a business-to-business booklet, which can be viewed here. Presented in the 'Pattern Recognition' elective exhibition at the RCA.
Tree
Commissioned by Electric Objects for their EO1 Display, Tree HD is a virtual tree that grows in real time. Taking 10 years from it's initial generation to reach maturation, details such as simulated co2 levels, leaf count, and trunk measurements can be tracked via the display.
Made using Javascript and Three.js.
Antivitamin Kit
A response to a brief to create a product that uses the human body as a site of nutrition, the 'Antivitamin Kit' is based on research into nutrition and the ethics of state (and/or corporate) enforced food fortification. Containing everything you need to expel essential vitamins and minerals from the body, either for dietary reasons or as an act of radical bodily self-expression, with ingredients sourced over-the-counter and based on research into the biological mechanisms of mineral absorption.
The final kit contains a course of 3-in-1 functional Antivitamin pills (made from caffeine powder, tannin, and phytic acid sourced from ground sesame seeds hulls), magnesium sulphate pills and solution, as well as a recipe book of ‘anti-nutritious’ recipes. You can see the recipe book here.
